Meathead

First brought to my attention by Ken Rudolph on Facebook, this reproduction of a political meathead collage, which has recently been widely disseminated on-line (without attribution):

(#1)

Baloney face, banana hair

I put out a request for attribution on Facebook, and after some churning there, archarchivist Michael Palmer nailed it as the work of the very playful Spanish artist Asier Sanz (who uses the name Asier for his artwork):

On his webpage (in Spanish), he describes himself as dibujante y humorista gráfico ‘cartoonist and graphic humorist’ and writes about the work of Asier y Javier. In translation:

The humorous duo Asier and Javier is composed of Asier Sanz (1969) and José Javier Gamboa (1965). We define ourselves as “two human beings who have the double fortune of dedicating ourselves to laughter and being from Bilbao” [in the Basque country]. Javier started in the newspaper Bilbao.

Great pride in the Basque country, and in its legendary footballer Iribal, the subject of this Asier & Javier caricature:

Having played almost exclusively for Athletic Bilbao, he appeared in more than 600 official games for the club over the course of 18 La Liga seasons, winning two major titles.

The real Iribar in his prime, so you can see what Asier and Javier picked up on in their caricature:

(#3)

Finally, a note on the popularity of “Meathead” as a title for #1. The insult meathead ‘stupid person’ has been around for some time, but spread widely after Archie Bunker (played by Carroll C’Connor) dissed his son-in-law Michael Stivic (played by Rob Reiner) with the slur in the tv sitcomAll in the Family.